Bras & Broomsticks (5 page)

Watching them fly around on Halloween will be nerve-wracking. But this is the most kissed-by-a-prince/ win-the-lottery/so-amazing-it’s-unbelievable type of thing that has ever happened to me.

Ahhh
. I lie down and pull the covers over my head. Then, for the first time, realization washes over me.

It’s not the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. It’s the most amazing thing that has ever happened to . . . Miri.

Witchcraft, an ability normally passed from mother to daughter, has skipped me. As with breasts, nature has decided I don’t qualify.

By four thirty I still can’t sleep, so I decide that my mother shouldn’t either.

Her ghastly early-morning breath wafts over me as I poke her in the shoulder. Unfortunately, that’s a trait I did inherit. I’m sure my future husband will appreciate it.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, sitting up. She’s still in her ratty concert tee. You’d think a witch could spruce herself up a bit. Give herself a free makeover or fake nails. Get her roots done. She has a blond ring orbiting her brown roots, as if she’s Saturn.

I crawl into bed beside her. “You owe me an explanation. Why can’t I resuscitate lobsters? Do any witches get magic later in life?”

She switches on her bedside lamp. “Normally magical powers appear during puberty, but some witches come into them when they have their first child.” She narrows her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Mom!”

“Just saying. Anyway, one woman I knew traumatized herself and her husband when she levitated their baby right out of the crib.”

A balloon of hope fills me. “So it can still happen?”

She nods. “It can.”

Fantastic!

And then she adds, “But it might not. Some daughters never become witches.”

My balloon pops and sags lifelessly to the ground. “That’s so unfair. Why does Miri get powers and not me? She didn’t even finish the first Harry Potter and that was the shortest one. I read them all!”

“Honey, I know you think witchcraft is all fun and games, but it comes with serious responsibilities. Maybe when you’re more mature and responsible—”

“What do I have to do?” I whine. “Keep my room clean and make hundreds of useless lists like Miri?”

“It’s not about specific actions. It’s more of a mental state.”

“Oh,” I say, not sure whether I want to pout or cry at the unfairness of it all.

“Miri looks up to you, and I expect you to help her deal with the changes in her life and to guide her to do the right thing.”

Help Miri, guide Miri, blah, blah, blah. Miri gets everything.

I rest my cheek against the pillow and look at my mom. “Remember in fourth grade when all the girls in my class were invited to Krissy Backer’s sleepover and I wasn’t?” I ask, feeling sad at the years-old memory. Then indignation fills me. Looking like a dork with those braces? Totally unnecessary. That haircut that had total strangers gasping with pity? Completely avoidable. I blink back tears.

My mom studies me. “I know what you’re thinking, honey.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” I blurt out. “You could have made my life a zillion times better if you had only used a smidgen of magic!”

My mom smoothes back my hair. “I understand how it could seem that way to you. But trust me, magic isn’t all that it appears to be. I wanted you and Miri to experience life—with all its joys and its sorrows—not some artificial world that I created to make you happy.” She kisses my forehead. “I love you, Rachel. More than you’ll ever know.”

“I love you too, Mom,” I say, sniffling. After a few minutes of witch-daughter bonding, I sit up. “Did Miri use magic to give herself boobs?”

She smiles and shakes her head. “I developed early too. You take after your father. He didn’t have his growth spurt until he was seventeen.”

Life is so unfair. “So I guess you can’t put a spell on me to become a witch.”

“Afraid not,” my mom tells me. “If you’re meant to be one, you will be.”

I get up and walk to the door with a sigh. “Well . . . can I at least keep the shoes?”

My mom hesitates, then smiles. “I’ll make an exception just this once.”

With that victory in hand, I drag my bare feet back into my bed. But instead of sleeping, I spend the next two hours trying to levitate my duvet.

Unsuccessfully.

4

FLY, MIRI, FLY!

It’s only quarter of nine on Friday morning and the day is already a disaster.

First, I cornered Miri in the kitchen, begging her to zap away my horrendous under-eye circles.

“Did you listen to a word Mom said? No!”

“I was up all night digesting
your
witch news. Take some responsibility!”

But noooooo.

Then, she borrowed my new sneakers without asking, and since my black boots have been MIA since the switcheroo, I had to wear my smelly gym shoes. If she ever takes them again without my permission, I’m fully dropping a house on her.

Except she’s the one with the powers, so I can’t even do that.

Third, because I’m still in a trance from yesterday’s news, I tripped between the third and fourth floors and banged my knee on a metal stair. The bruise ain’t gonna be pretty.

Fourth, Tammy went on and on about how fantastic yesterday’s pizza excursion was for the entire twenty minutes of homeroom, and she made me miss all the announcements.

(I’m getting so much better at these lists. Maybe now I can have my powers?)

“I really had the best time at Stromboli’s,” she says, for the eighty-seventh time, while unsnapping her lock. Her locker is right next to mine, because we’re in the same homeroom and our last names both start with Ws. I’m Weinstein and she’s Wise.

“So who was there?” I ask.

“Everyone.”

She must see the look of dismay on my face, because she quickly wrinkles her nose, which makes it look big (I’ll admit it’s a bit on the large side, even though I always swear to her it isn’t), and adds, “I mean, not
everyone
. It wasn’t a big deal. You didn’t miss much.” She wobbles her right hand, which is her so-so signal.

I don’t need psychic abilities to know she’s trying to make me feel better. “Was Jewel there?”

“Um . . .” She pulls her green binder off her top shelf. “Yeah.”

“And Raf? And Mick?”

She bows her head. “Mick was. We sat at the same table.”

Ouch. An oversharpened pencil spears my heart. “He would have been at my table if I’d been there,” I moan.

“I hadn’t realized he was such a nice guy,” she says, intensifying the chest stabbing. “I stuck my elbow in tomato sauce and he was the first one up to get me a napkin.”

So unfair. It should have been
me
staining my shirt.

“Maybe I’ll find out where they’re going tonight,” she says.

“No point,” I say, and sigh heavily. “I have to go to my dad’s.”

The most annoying part of having divorced parents is spending every second weekend on Long Island. I love my dad, and I want to spend time with him, but the packing, train taking, and missing out on all the weekend festivities are a massive disruption to a fourteen-year-old’s social calendar.

Of course, if I have an important event—bat mitzvah, school function, shoe shopping—I can stay in Manhattan, but then I burn Miri by making her go to Long Island alone. My sister says STB nags her more when I’m not around. (“Stop biting your nails!” “Don’t pick at your food!” “No practicing your karate in the house!”) I don’t doubt it. STB never nags when my dad is there. She pulls a Jekyll and Hyde every time. When he’s there, she’s supersweet and helpful: “You’re so creative, Rachel!” As soon as he walks into the next room, she instantly becomes evil: “Why are you such a slob?”

My dad hates when we miss a weekend. But now that he has STB, he can’t switch dates easily. She’s always got something up her wrinkle-free sleeve—dinners, theater tickets, trips to the Caribbean.

We never went to the Caribbean when he was married to my mom. We never even went to the Jersey shore. To be fair, he wasn’t a partner in his law firm then and didn’t have as much money. We drove to Florida twice and took some weekend ski trips to Stowe, but we never left the country (unless you count World Showcase in Epcot). Those car rides were long. We’d play Geography, the game where you name a city/state/country that starts with the final letter of the place last named.

“Vermont,” I’d start.

“Texas,” my dad would say.

“Salem,” my mom would complete.

And I thought it was her travel career that gave her the unfair advantage.

All the signs were there. I just didn’t speak witchcraft.

Maybe one day my dad will take us to an island. Miri and I could learn to scuba dive and then I’d be able to better communicate with Tammy.

Hmm. Maybe not. Aren’t witches allergic to water? The wicked witch in
The Wizard of Oz
melted when Dorothy drenched her. Does Miri have to stop bathing now? Super. Something else to look forward to.

Tammy eyes me with pity. “I’m so lucky my moms and dad all live in the city.” She is surprisingly well adjusted regarding her mother/stepmothers situation. On Mother’s Day she even buys three cards. “Tomorrow, all of them are coming over for Valentine’s Day dinner. Can you believe they all get along?”

“You’re lucky.” Since my parents’ divorce, I don’t think they have even volunteered to be in the same room. It’s not that they fight—they’re always civil— they’re just awkward. I get the feeling that, to them, being in proximity to each other is like listening to nails scraping against a blackboard.

I guess I should be grateful that they don’t fight. They never fought. My dad just realized he was no longer in love with my mom. They had gotten married young, the day after they graduated from college, before he knew what he wanted. For weeks after they discussed divorcing, he stayed in our apartment until they worked out the financial arrangements and he found a place of his own. And not even during those weeks did I hear them argue.

“You spending Valentine’s Day at your dad’s?” Tammy asks me, interrupting my trip down Divorce Lane.

“
Mais
oui
. Unfortunately. No hot date for me.” No potential change in my Frenching status this romantic holiday.

Tammy gives me a comforting shoulder pat as we head toward math. “Let’s stop at the bathroom,” she says.